What before-and-after photos cannot tell you

A pair of photographs shows one person's teeth at two moments, chosen by whoever is selling the treatment. It tells you nothing about how that case began, how long it took, what it cost, what else was done, or whether your mouth resembles it.

This site publishes no before-and-after images at all — not clinical photographs, not stock, not generated ones — because an image of somebody else's result is the least informative thing we could put on a page about your decision.

Six things a photo pair leaves out

The starting case. Mild crowding and a complex bite look different in a treatment plan and can look similar in a thumbnail.

What else was done. Whitening, bonding, veneers, a new crown, extractions: none of it is captioned, and all of it changes how an "after" looks.

Time. Two images have no duration. A result at eight months and a result at two years look identical side by side.

Retention. The "after" is taken at the end of treatment. Whether it held is a different photograph nobody publishes.

Selection. You are seeing the cases the seller chose. The ones that needed refinements, or that were abandoned, are not in the gallery.

Photography. Lighting, angle, lip retraction, focal length and whether the mouth is wet or dry change the apparent shade and alignment of teeth, before anyone edits anything.

The rule that now governs this material

In August 2024 the US Federal Trade Commission announced a final rule, 16 CFR Part 465, the Trade Regulation Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials. It took effect 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, and the FTC can seek civil penalties against knowing violators.

Among the practices it bans: fake or false consumer reviews, consumer testimonials and celebrity testimonials, including ones generated by AI; reviews where payment is conditioned on expressing a particular sentiment; insider reviews by officers, managers or employees that do not disclose the connection; company-controlled sites presented as independent; and the suppression of negative reviews using "unfounded or groundless legal threats, physical threats, intimidation".

That last category is not hypothetical in this industry. In June 2023 the District of Columbia Attorney General announced that SmileDirectClub had to release more than 17,000 consumers nationwide from non-disclosure agreements they had signed to get refunds, stop requiring them, and pay $500,000. The District's statement described a company that "touted five-star reviews — but behind the scenes... silenced dissatisfied consumers."

Read that alongside a wall of glowing testimonials and you understand why the count of positive reviews is a weak signal on its own.

Why this search is so popular, and what people are really after

"Before and after" is among the most-searched things in this whole subject, and the motive behind it is reasonable: people want to know whether the treatment does anything. A photograph seems like the most direct possible evidence.

The trouble is that it answers a question nobody actually has. Clear aligners move teeth — that is not in dispute, and no gallery is needed to establish it. The questions that matter are whether they can move your teeth, how far, how long it would take and what it would cost, and a photograph of a stranger is silent on all four.

There is a second motive, less often admitted: people want reassurance before spending a lot of money. That is understandable, and a gallery is a poor place to find it. A written treatment plan with a named clinician behind it is reassurance you can hold someone to.

Reading a gallery critically

If you are looking at a practice's or a seller's photographs anyway, a few questions make them more useful than they look.

1. Is the case described — what was wrong, what was planned, how long it took?
2. Is anything other than aligners mentioned? If not, is the shade suspiciously different between the two pictures?
3. Are the angles and lighting the same in both?
4. How long after treatment was the "after" taken?
5. Would the practice show you a case like yours, described in clinical terms, rather than its best one?
6. Can they explain what would be difficult about your case? A seller who describes only upside is selling.

Editing, filters and generated images

Phone cameras now smooth and brighten by default, and a picture can be improved without anyone deciding to deceive. Whitening a shade in an editor takes seconds; straightening an edge takes slightly longer. Neither leaves a mark a reader can see.

Generated images raise the stakes again, and the FTC's 2024 rule names them: its ban on fake or false consumer reviews and testimonials expressly covers material generated by AI. A synthetic "after" presented as a patient result is the clearest case the rule addresses.

For a reader, the practical consequence is not to become a forensic analyst. It is to downgrade the whole category of evidence. A photograph you cannot verify, from a seller with an interest in how it looks, is not worth the effort of interrogating — a written plan for your own mouth is.

What to ask for instead

The thing worth asking for is not a photograph, it is a plan: what the clinician proposes to move, how, over roughly how long, what is included, what happens if it does not land as projected, and what retention will involve afterwards.

Chair-side treatment is usually planned in software from a scan, and the projection of your own teeth is far more informative than a gallery of other people's. Treat it as a projection, though, not a promise — it is what the software expects if everything goes as planned and the trays are worn as instructed.

The US Food and Drug Administration's advice remains the plainest starting point: get "an evaluation by a dentist or orthodontist, preferably in-person to determine whether clear aligners are appropriate for you".

Why we illustrate instead

Every drawing on this site is made for it: no photographs of real mouths, no clinical images, nobody's teeth but an invented set. The hero on the front page shows four trays going from crooked to even and is labelled as an illustration, because that is what it is.

That is not squeamishness. It is that a drawing cannot be mistaken for evidence, and a photograph of a stranger's result constantly is.

If you want figures rather than pictures, every published aligner price with the date it was read is on what clear aligners cost, read at source, and the decision itself is worked through on the worth-it checklist.